Monday, January 16, 2012

This past weekend, the family (husband Jay, daughter Kelsey and myself) went on our planned excursion to the poultry show being held at the Big E, an hour away. Our plan was to purchase a couple of the large breed hens we’d admired so much at the last poultry show we attended in November where we bought another Silkie and a bantam Cochin, both very small girls.

Millie, the bantam Cochin hen

The Mallory Complex Building at the Big E was divided into two areas, birds for sale and show birds. Only one person was selling chickens in the large fowl category, the rest were bantam (miniature) chickens or breeds that didn’t interest us. So we zeroed in on Steve who had a few cages of very large Cochins. Unfortunately, his hens were already marked as sold and we didn’t want a rooster….or did we? We could wait a couple of hours for Steve’s friend to come back from the farm where he’d gone to get more hens to sell, try to talk one of the exhibitors into selling their show chickens (after judging) or consider one of the three colorful cockerals (male chickens under the age of one year) Steve still had available. Jay admired the cape of feathers on the males for fly-tying purposes (a fly-tier will pay as much as $90 for a scalped rooster cape of outstanding quality), Kelsey wanted to get the rooster and go; I was the hold out. As we stood there and debated, two other buyers came up and offered to buy Steve’s chickens. I was being pressured.

I did not want to take a chance on another aggressive rooster, like our previous one who had to be sold. The downside to not having a rooster though is that they truly become the leader of a flock and will protect their hens from predators, often to the death. These boys were the size of a hawk, but a lot heftier. A rooster has no influence on a hen’s egg-laying ability, just whether or not the eggs are fertile (something we don’t care about). The Cochin breed is known for being big, friendly and fluffy; the gentle giant of chickens. Interestingly enough, our bantam hen Millie is a Cochin too. Same breed, just two extreme sizes.

You guessed it; I gave in and we got ourselves a roo. He barely fit in the large cat carrier I had, but we placed him in the back seat and happily left, me still in disbelief that we’d just bought a rooster. His clucking is a low, resonant sound, a deep James Earl Jones-type of voice. “How about naming him Mufasa?” I suggested to Kelsey. “He’ll be like the King of the Jungle, a protector of his flock.” Kelsey came up with a better name, Aslan, the lion character from The Chronicles of Narnia series by C.S. Lewis.

Since we had to go through Hartford on our way home, we made a detour to Whole Foods to pick up gluten free foods for Kelsey. Kelsey has Celiac Disease so we are constantly looking for food that will work for her. We filled our grocery cart and finished by picking up lunch while were there. As we sat in our car in the Whole Foods parking lot eating lunch, I thought about what a wonderful family day it’d been. A brilliant cockeral in the back seat, a happy daughter because she’d found the gluten free mega-load, and a delicious meal for three hungry people. Aslan even got to share in our Whole Foods bounty.

Normally, there is a proper way to introduce a new chicken to the existing flock, just as there are best practices for bringing a new kitten home. Chickens, however, can be evil toward new-comers and tend to attack those perceived as intruders or weak. I hoped that with Aslan’s size and gender, he wouldn’t get hen-pecked, but he’s very young. My hens may not be impressed with a teenage boy. With previous new clucks, I put them in a cage near the coop so everyone could get used to seeing each other for a few days. In this case, the temperature was expected to be about 9 degrees overnight so leaving a chicken in an exposed cage was out of the question. I ignored Kelsey’s suggestion of keeping a rooster in her bedroom. Aslan squeezed through the door of my bigger cage and stayed there until dark when I placed him on an empty perch in the chicken coop. Chickens are blind and helpless in the dark so the hens had no choice but to allow the stranger with the deep voice to nest with them.

In the morning I opened the coop doors and calm, cool Aslan strutted out of the coop with his new harem and began to eat the scratch off the ground. This was the first time the hens got a good look at Aslan out in the yard with them. The first challenger was Pilgrim, our Plymouth Barred Rock, then Lucy, the Rhode Island Red. Both tried to spar with him. A couple of fluttering chest-bumps from the big guy and the hens quickly figured out the new boy was no push over and backed off.

Aslan is doing great so far. I constantly marvel at how truly magnificent he is with his multiple colors and his feathered legs. I took my scale out and weighed him; he’s 9 pounds. He should weigh about 11 pounds when he’s fully grown. He hasn’t picked on any of the girls and has started crowing, albeit an adolescent crow. The hens respect him and no further aggression was observed from anybody. When I let them out in the afternoon to range in our yard, Aslan stayed right with his new flock, returning to the coop to roost when it got dark. It’s been such an easy integration with a large rooster into a flock of hens. Normally it can take weeks for a flock to completely accept new pullets and even then the smaller ones will always be at the bottom of the chicken hierarchy.

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Aslan with his new flock

In the cat world, the males rarely dominate the females. Boy cats will “Yes Dear” the girls, staying out the way if she’s in a bad mood and savoring the times she is affectionate. With dogs, we’ve all heard of the little dog bossing the large dog. For them, and for people, an assertive personality is all that’s needed to be in charge. In the chicken yard, however, size does matter. It doesn’t hurt to be the only boy either.

Thursday, January 12, 2012

I’m one of those people who know how to spell. I’m from the old school, before spell-check started creating a generation who has no clue how to spell correctly. Since spelling is one of my few talents, I was disappointed years ago to learn that my natural ability has nothing to do with intelligence. If I’ve spent hours creating a new page for my website only to find out later that I have a typo (there is no spell-check built into web design), I will go back in and correct it, no matter how tired I am of sitting at the computer.

My kids cringe when I find a misspelling because I usually declare out loud, “Ah ha! They can’t even spell ‘necessary’! I should send this back marked up in red pen.” “Mom, please don’t say anything to my teacher. Just let it go," they beg. I especially get irked when I see a business has paid a third party for professional signage or documents, only to have typos glaring out. I have found typos in clothing labels “Machine Wash Seperately” and government forms “The Special Administerator shall file a vertification of assets...” My spelling gift is both a blessing and a curse because I find mistakes very difficult to over look, giving me a Miss Know-It-All edge.

All that being stated, I am much less of a perfectionist with just about every other aspect of my life, where I often choose to take the “it’s good enough” approach. For this reason, you don’t want me in an accounting field where numbers and balancing are important. I can spell ledger, but don’t ask me to keep one and have it make sense.

For instance, I like to do pottery. If my pot isn’t centered on the wheel, that’s okay, it’s good enough.

If my husband is doing carpentry work and the corners are not square, he’ll start over. My answer to most home repairs is duct tape.

If I’m following a new recipe and find I’m missing a couple of ingredients, that’s okay.

If I clean the floor and find a tumble weed of pet hair later, I may let it lie.

Painting a wall; why do I need to prime it first if I'm just going to paint over it?

If a cat has a “hanger-on” after using the litter box and the dog gets to it first… well, that just makes my job easier.

Maybe I’m just lazy, but then again, I have to save my energy for the important things in life; like finding typos.

About Me

I have been breeding and showing Maine Coon cats since 2001. I also share my home with a husband, kids, dogs and chickens. It's a life decorated with challenges, cuteness, hair and feathers. Visit my cattery website on http://www.dracoonfly.com.
I also blog on the Ledyard Patch at http://ledyard.patch.com/users/sharon-stegall/blog_posts